


Passion Rising From The Ashes

by reaching4thestars



Series: Passion Rising From The Ashes [1]
Category: Kuroshitsuji, Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Kuroshitsuji Fusion, Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Canon - Manga, Death, Demons, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, England (Country), Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, Grim Reapers, Heartbreak, Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler References, Love, Manga & Anime, Murder, Mystery, Other, Passion, Pining, Psychological Trauma, Suicide, Supernatural Elements, Tragic Romance, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reaching4thestars/pseuds/reaching4thestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madam Red descends further into depression and madness. Her fragile emotional state is shattered when she meets a devious reaper who makes her into a vulnerable target and sets the stage for her.</p><p>A Kuroshitsuji fanfiction series that revolves around an Original Character, a reaper and his interactions with the characters in the Kuroshitsuji universe, beginning with Madam Red and Grell Sutcliffe.<br/>Might be useful for character study and exploring her mental state - Madam Red's descent into madness and her unexpected catalyst. Implements historical accuracy as most as possible regarding the Jack the Ripper murders, save for the identity of the killer, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Perennial Hibernation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She had gazed at her eyes in her sordid reflection, silently marvelled at the blazing fire in them and prayed for it to consume her the same way it had consumed Him. And consume her it did.

Morning dawned long after, sharp and chill with clouds dyed grey, heavy and laden with chimney dust. A decent start for a typical day in her London townhouse. Angelina blinked slowly and remembered. She had been dreaming about the bright sangria spider-like tendrils on the flower. She lay an eerie corpse-like still under the thick covers, her hands possessively folded over her flat stomach as her attempt to move waned futile. Wincing at a painful recollection, she retracted her hands from her all-too flat stomach suddenly as if the touch scalded her. Her breathing had started to rasp excruciatingly, and she slowed it down deliberately when it started to hitch.

It’s getting bad again.

The pain had been isolated, but steadily throbbing red. It had started to engulf her lately in the glare of pulsating crimson. She started feeling as if ice was being constantly applied to the wound, painfully stark against the growing burn, crippling her frayed nerves and engulfing them instead with numbness. She gave way and it threatened to drown her.

It reminded her of when she first got married. There was the usual high of matrimonial bliss shortly after the wedding. Sheer bliss, she only remembered being overcome, a fabrication of being affected suddenly by absolute and monumental bliss. She had swallowed the brightest part of that matrimonial bliss, which had glowed a lovely cerise pink- yes, she was quite so affected, and it had burned a gaping hole in her bosom. There was the irrational fear that every breath she took would fan it higher and higher and yet she breathed deeply without the slightest hesitation.

She wasn’t afraid then.

Why bury the passion she felt then when she could let it roam wild of its own volition and unfettered by stupid stupid society? She had let it send little showers of sparks into her being, spreading its innocent warmth into the very particles of her. She had forgotten how lovely it was simply to be able to obsess openly over an object of her affection.

It was ephemeral. The bliss had overwhelmed her in its misleading waltz and left her in the lurch of her own emotions with abandon. Regret had taken its place on her pedestal, having clawed its way unsuspectingly to thrust and lunge at her bosom, leaving little indentations through which she would bleed out later on.

Regret had her jolting awake in the dead of the night and clutching at the wrong man sleeping beside her. It would orchestrate when she would routinely think she was merely sleeping in the wrong bed that night, leaving her hopelessly resentful in a wave of depression that would soon swell.

It was not the only thing to soon swell.

Bliss had returned, enveloped her in a familiar lover’s embrace, whispering faint and flimsy promises of never leaving and ethereal parenthood when her world lurched forward with a dreadful trepidation. An abrupt collision interrupted their lives. She lost everything.

The cycle of emotions remained interrupted long after and only depression dutifully punctuated her periods of remorse.

She might even have recovered then, if it were not for the fire.

And in her too, the fire rose, swelled, and torched her charred remains.

She is aware now, of a terrible realization growing in her. It was never the drop she feared so desperately. She had been cornered and now stood teetering dangerously over the edge of a burning window. Make no mistake, the terror of the fall is very much present but when the flames get close enough to lick her experimentally, falling instantly becomes the lesser of two terrors.  
Death is never appealing. It just appears as the lesser of two evils.

Careful to hide her emotional fragility during her shifts at the hospital since her return despite falsely concerned protests, she shied away from performing the surgeries for the lack of a steady hand. She was meticulous in keeping up appearances, pretending to be alright when she was barely functional. Her pride would not let her admit her wounds. She didn’t know who to confide in anyway. She was all alone after all.

She was lost. Should she fend off passion which was once again threatening to breach her carefully built dams? Or should she surrender blindly?

‘I dreamt of the flower last night,’ thought Angelina. She clutched at the covers still. What was it? She had forgotten. But in a strange dreamlike wisp of atmosphere, They had come alive again. The fire, ironically mocking, had breathed the life it had stolen back into them and she rejoiced at the first sight of Him.

They listened patiently and seemed to swell with the importance of what she had divulged to Them. She had felt comforted again. She had liked to think that They smiled afterwards. But even her delusions failed her because it was not for her; They smiled instead at each other. It was a sly, secret smile that hid Their sickening pity and They continued to smile only among themselves. Sometimes she would startle awake in the blistering afternoon heat and They would be there and she could not bear to look for They would still be smiling. She had never envied her sister so much for perishing with her lover and leaving this world of distorted hurt behind. She had always envied her for having what she could not have. 

Why be given a heart when everything she loved and had grown to love is eventually wrenched away from her?

The bottles of blue pills lined on the shelf above the wash-stand looked especially tempting this morning. Her clothes from the eventful evening out before lay across the chair. She thought that it looked ridiculously flamboyant, especially idiotic in its precocious shades of red and black. But no, Madam Red had insisted. For the sake of continuity and farcical appearances, she drawled.

She made the mistake of glancing in the mirror at her own reflection. Her vision, if she was not already blind with the despair, was awash with blood.

She had gazed at her eyes in her sordid reflection, silently marvelled at the blazing fire in them and prayed for it to consume her the same way it had consumed Him. And consume her it did. 


	2. Fortuitous Germination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter of the series introduces the readers to a mysterious new character, an original character, a product of my fantasies. This chapter revolves around Angelina Dalles' interaction with the new character and how this sparks something dormant in her. Enjoy.

I walked back out of one of the dingy wards which were smaller in size but just as equally overcrowded and shrouded by a depression that suspended on the occupants, compressed almost to a fervent, manic hopelessness. Inhaling in relieved quiet breaths with the absence of the overbearing foul air, I frowned at the bother of having to return tomorrow for the little girl who was wheezing in weak wisps of air, in a dismal corner of the room. Her curious eyes had widened, spurred on by ominous foreboding the moment I stepped into the room. I knew she could see me. How bleak for the nearly dead. I flashed an insouciant smirk at her as I took my leave and chuckled morbidly at how her pallid face seemed to collapse upon itself immediately. How pathetic.

A job as a grim reaper certainly has worn my already frayed sympathetic nerves down to almost nothing. I say almost because occasionally sympathy would chance a nagging tug at my conscience and it would last for a full minute before disintegrating into the grey lump of lifeless mass we call routine. And all is well once more. 

On impulse, I glanced nonchalantly into one of the passing rooms. I halted in my stride. She was washing her blood-stained hands through the endless tap water running carelessly through her fingers. The scarlet odour clung stubbornly to her in a thick bulbous shroud of menacing aura. It wasn’t the gore of the blood I detected. I recognised her instantly for what she truly was underneath the farce, predator to predator. She shifted her gaze up to look at her reflection in the mirror.

I stared languidly, transfixed on her features, comfortable in the confidence that I would remain invisible to her. Something invisible jerked selfishly and emptied its remaining humanity into me intrudingly. There was the odd swell of melancholic emotions in a part of me I had thought was long consumed whole by the darkness. I swayed unsteadily at the abrupt eruption of repentance that coursed through my heart. I clenched at the wall nearby, willing my heart to stop pounding so poignantly. This I was naively foreign to and I wanted it to remain as such.

I redirected my attention to scrutinising her expression. It was the suppressed glint of madness in her unyielding gaze that caught my eye. There was also a hint of something else indiscernible which would lead one to wonder if she had just got away with murder. The ruthless single-minded determination in her gaze gave her away. That was the thing with humans. Madness was disguised cleverly with a cape of normalcy, passing off their foaming bite as eccentric genius. Posing quite a strenuous task for humans to identify the truly mad ones, they blended in well. They never truly let on till they had bitten a good mouthful of you.

The tugging at my emotions increased in urgency and by its brute strength, its tendrils curled around me possessively and distracted me with its sly smirk, laden and dripping with his signature mirth. The line has truly been disintegrated, blurred beyond identification. Even I cannot tell with certainty which of the emotions were truly mine.

I let _him_ chuckle in bemusement before I silenced _him_ though I have missed _his_ presence. _He_ nudged me to engage further, in _his_ suave manipulation of words, the same tactic I would later emulate to use on her.

I hummed with sadistic pleasure as I called to mind the words of a famous philosopher. No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. A predatory growl unconsciously escaped my lips. She jolted upright at the guttural sound and her eyes met mine in the reflection of the mirror.

I caught myself thrown off guard by the immense hatred glaringly cold in those vermillion eyes. I had an epiphany. The indiscernible element was her burning passion. So raging were the emotions possessing her that I flinched away from her as though scalded. I glanced at the list I wearily retrieved from my pocket. She must be suicidal.

Passion is a deadly notion. Set it off slightly and it slips way off grid as it contorts itself into a far more dangerous sentiment. I bit my lip. Is that jealousy or hatred? Perhaps it is both those wraths coupled menacingly that I am able to sense with such immense intensity. Oh, how it must be tearing her apart.

The edge of my mouth curled earthwards in distaste. She reeked of the tell-tale beginning pangs of a poison that was still weak, gradually pooling little enough venom. As my chartreuse phosphorescent eyes bore into hers, she recoiled and retreated into her former self. I sensed her passion flicker and wane, as if she was unnerved by her hatred reflected in my eyes. How fickle. Perhaps she had tensed at the matching feral tenacity in my stare that possibly overpowered hers.

There was a drastic change in her. She seemed strangely intimidated. Her self-confidence seemed to have shrunk to almost nothingness underneath my searching gaze. She cocked her head up to look at me with a bewildered gaze much like a deer caught in harsh headlights, as if she had just realized the tragedies that have caught up to her. I did not know what to make of her sudden change in demeanour. Her face crumpled slightly in defeat and there was a fleeting spark of recognition as if something in my gaze posed achingly familiar to her. She had this wounded gaze, as if she had been slapped across the face in the taunting fashion something unattainable would pose derisively.

My gaze widened and we stood motionless until she tore away. Her sense of perception seems oddly distorted, as if fixated on an ugly angle. I meticulously took attentive note of it, as was my habit. This was a distorted facet of her personality I could manipulate to suit my will.

Her eyes have since gained some authority in them when she dared gamble an exchange with me. She opened her mouth to protest against my presence in the hospital as an unwarranted visitor, naively ignoring my out-of-place attire and the daunting nail gun nuzzled conveniently in a thigh holster on my right.

I interrupted, deftly disguising my snide, knowing tone with genuine curiosity. “What are you doing here masquerading as a healer, a vicious beast like you?”

I rejoiced at the devastating effect my words seemed to have on her and I purred, deviously satiated as I watched her crumble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Do linger around for the progress on this work. Constructive comments are always welcome. Please be very patient with me(:


	3. Foliage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 3 of the Passion Has A Way of Rising From the Ashes series revolving around Angelina Dalles, Grell Sutcliff and an original female character who I hope is compelling enough. Further interactions of Angelina and the original character which contributes a lot to her assuming the persona of jack the Ripper.
> 
> “Madam is a first class predator indeed. What delectable grounds for prowling.”

There was a fiery red searing within her that made even her fingertips burn. She would do anything to douse the heat, to alleviate the terror of the flames. She barely whispered to the fire in the throbbing pulse of a momentary swell of courage, “Consume me whole. Render me to ashes.” She could take this no more, for she had not the endurance for passion.

A low chuckle sounded and jolted her to the bleak hospital consultation room she had to herself, a privilege earned through her diligent work. It was that person again from yesterday. She rested her head against the back of her chair, welcoming anything to break the unforgiving silence. She opened her eyes again and let them rake intrusively all over the visitor’s appearance who hardly blanched, and she decided to call her visitor a ‘he’ for now.

“Your red hair is truly exquisite,” His beguiling smirk softened into an achingly reminiscent smile and his voice dropped to a whisper of a dangerously soothing timbre. “Ann.”

The pile of dreary hospital files heaped precariously on the edge of the table tumbled on to the floor. But that wasn’t the reason the temperature in the room had plummeted. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had called her by that name. Madam Red was all she went by now. She teared up unwillingly, adamant at the intrusion. “You have no right –”

Her protest trailed into daunting silence ungracefully, for even this exhausted her. She heaved heavily and resorted to picking up the files as a feeble excuse for something else to do. A sheaf of papers detailing the patients who had passed this morning had slipped out inconspicuously, sprawled on the floor in an ominous spread of human fragility. Her fingers grasped the grainy papers and positioned them on top of the files she had reassembled on her desk. The adolescent face of the girl who had contracted an incurable coughing fit with the glaring words ‘deceased’ stamped bright crimson across the picture seared into her conscience. The red ink still smudged.

He was watching her all the while. His stare had trailed her fingers to the stack of papers and she noticed an irritation ruffle his features at the sight of the girl. His fingers seemed to twitch possessively at the handle of the nail gun. He noticed her curious stare.

Recovering rapidly, he deceptively flashed a noble’s captivating smile in her direction. The confidence and demeanour he exuded could rival that of a debonair earl, distracting and alluring enough to veil the guile present in how the cunning devil planned to lay his trap.

He blinked his chartreuse phosphorescent slits at her almost convincingly innocent and shook his head, gently disapproving. He even made the effort to speak in an even tone, hints of derision floating behind his velvet lulls and seductive hums of smooth, sharpened persuasion. “You should revel in being different. You have always embraced it. I see it blazing when you challenge convention in striving hard to be a doctor in times so hard for women. Your strength of character is admirable.”

He shamelessly leaned his weight on the back of her chair with an arm amicably resting on her shoulder and the other hand pressed determinedly white on the edge of the table. He slyly leaned close enough for his hot breath to graze her ear and skim her bare neck. “Why should you shy away from it this time? Let the beautiful lycoris radiata guide you.” She shivered while tingles of pleasure started to stir in an achingly familiar manner, clashing with the still tender wounds in places she thought had healed. “There is no shame in surrendering to passion.”

There was an impatient series of knocks at the door and the woman didn't bother to pause to listen for an answer before barging in. He didn't avert his attention to the intruder but languidly moved to the side of the desk in one fluid motion, and remained hovering.

He kept his curious eyes fixed on the doctor’s expression which she painstakingly kept business-like. She noted that he seemed to be invisible to the woman and there was a wave of irrational fear that ran her blood cold.

It was banal procedure and she willingly let herself slip into the monotony. She proceeded to scrawl the woman’s name, Martha Tabram, on a new record. It wasn’t until the woman voiced out her intentions for an abortion did her fingers curl viciously around her pen, as if wishing instead to curl around her sharpest scalpel. Observing the change in her temper, his head hungrily swivelled to gauge a better look at the woman and he strode up till he was directly behind the patient to mockingly raise a playful eyebrow at Madam Red.  
Some look that might have been envy came over the doctor's features.

It was almost too easy. Her distorted perception rendered the entire process effortless, even entertaining for the reaper as he goaded her on.

It came to him, then, more clearly that she was already well on her descent to madness. The reaper had violated his neutral position in lieu of being a catalyst. He couldn't care less, being much closer to a revelation on the predicament he very much sought an answer to for a long time. He could almost taste it.

He could feel again, he could feel it. Something is ahead of him, some revelation just –

He couldn’t hide his outward gasp of anticipation. He snickered deviously, an infectious jovial mirth punctuating Madam Red’s own annoyance at his cause for amusement. He exploded in amused laughter before pausing to eye the prostitute now fidgeting uncomfortably with her purse, a common nervous tick.

“Madam is a first class predator indeed. What delectable grounds for prowling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Do please leave a kudos if you liked it.


	4. The Maiden Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 4th chapter in my series. I am sorry it took me so long to update. This chapter entails Madame Red's first kill and her internal thought processes.

It was difficult to pinpoint a certain violence happening. I sighed laboriously as I paced impatiently on the ledge of the roof of the worn down George Yard Building. My vantage point was ideal, given that I could easily observe the only entrance point to the alley. Madam was jittery tonight. It was evident in how she had cautiously dogged the prostitute from the White Swan pub on Whitechapel High Street all the way to the prostitute’s paid rendezvous with a private in George Yard. They should be headed here soon for there was no other way to pass by as the aforementioned yard narrowed into a looming dead end.

  
Humans were such an easily detestable race. Madam Red had chosen this particular area where domestic violence and violent attacks on people were deemed commonplace, much of it creditable to the perpetual drunkenness that was endemic in the poorer sections of East End Society.

  
The staircase and alleyway gas lamps had been extinguished and the landings were shrouded by an impenetrable darkness. I leisurely took off my glasses to rub at a smudge when there was a movement in the corner of my peripheral sight. I watched Martha Tabram slip out of the darkness of George Yard and paused, leaning on the adjacent wall as she recovered from the ‘four-penny knee trembler’ and waved a flamboyant farewell to her client with cheaply painted nails who disappeared as he turned the corner.  
Like in anatomical theatre, the heavy curtains raised frightfully and the show started, well on its way after a lengthy drawn out intermission as the main protagonist crept on stage. Madam Red sidled towards her, tapping her testily on her shoulder. I scrambled to the edge of the ledge and perched myself nearer. The passion unravelled in her each instant and it unravelled the thirsty beast in me as well. I was rendered even more satisfied in the fact that this moment will be etched into her cinematic record, already tainted a malicious tinge in the sepia reserved for memories.

  
It all unfolded slowly as if lasting several minutes when in actuality it only took a mere three seconds. Unsuspecting Martha Tabram turned nauseatingly slow in an arc and Madam lunged, only the glint of the blade visible in the ferocity of the moment. She drew a deep darkening slit that stretched beautifully clean across the ugly whore’s throat from one side to the other. No audible sound fell from the moving lips that gaped an ugly sight for air. Her assailant then dragged her into the George Yard Building, one greedy arm coiled over her spurting neck. I landed on the cold damp gravel soon afterwards and followed the blood trail into the cheap apartments ravenously. It was all too infectious to end so soon.

  
She had stopped on the stairs landing with her prize of the night. The prey gurgled from the gash on her throat and slumped spinelessly against the wall. She laid the prey supine on the stairs landing.

  
The procedural cutting up of bodies in the surgery ward was never near enough to satiate her. She had longed to tear human tissue and flesh to stringy unrecognizable shreds of mauled meat and to truly rip sinews and muscles in a feral vicious barbarity. And this was the stage she brought her sickest and most depraved desires to reality, her surgery blade moving incessantly, zigzagging its way down to the woman’s torso. Even in the stifling dark, her precision was uncannily accurate.  
She didn’t stop. Nor did she hesitate.

  
I strained my eyes to catch every detail of her expression. She stabbed and pierced mercilessly, venting herself ruthlessly of all the emotions that had been tormenting her all this while. Her unrivalled passion which was forcibly repressed in every way was fuelled even more by her seething anger and consuming envy all while punctuated by the unconscionable pain from the losses death dealt her.

  
I had witnessed the finest of the frenzied attack. Even I had to admit that I was shaken to the core by the sheer intensity of her ardour. As a reaper, my daily routine had a painfully scant supply of passionate purpose. Following such close contact with it first hand, I was intrigued. After all, I classed as one of the dead, perpetually atoning for my selfish sin in grey monotony. Feverish passion would be such a luxury to witness.

  
Madam Red slaughtered with such fervour and even without spilling blood; she lived every waking minute immersed in her own turbulent emotions. Ann had been in the throes of passion, incinerated in the insufferable heat for so long that she had settled in the familiarity of it. It had peaked and erupted in a gut-wrenching way, and it died down to oblivion with the fire. Life was bland without her emotional stimulants. With a strategic trigger and some goading, I could see how far the limits of the human condition lie. I wanted to incite Madam Red’s wrath and push Ann over the edge. They were two sides of the same coin, Angelina and Madam Red and the duality manifested into a compulsive need to afflict the pain she felt on people in a desperate attempt to numb her own suffering. The facets of human psychology certainly were interesting. The humanity in me screamed in strife at my recklessness and chided me that this was a dangerous game I was playing. My curiosity refused me the will to abandon my efforts.  
This would be the first of the bloody carnage Madam Red would leave behind as her twisted legacy.

  
Madam Red staggered to a stop, she reluctantly dropped the blade and curled up, knees to her chest, trembling in manic fear beside the spreading blackness that pooled underneath the body. I counted the gaping holes that peppered the body. There were thirty-nine in all, bleeding a drowning black in the dim light. I stood motionless, waiting for her to recover and as her panicked breathing fell silent, she craned her head up to meet my blank gaze.

  
Madam Red’s need to slaughter had risen out of her own necessity to make sense of the mental and emotional chaos that plagued her incessantly. It was a depraving act but the blood she spilled painted a less frightening picture of her inner world. The shame ripped her dignified humanity to agony but it compensated for it in the immense pleasure and release she gained soon afterwards. In her distorted perception of events, this was an act that fuelled her confidence and had rekindled the smouldering ashes of her passion she had missed.

  
I had looked at her with renewed interest, yet a part of me screamed in anguish, as if choked by the sheer disappointment in her depravity. And for the first time, I felt conflicted. It was beautifully refreshing. She looked at me receptively and I noticed the frenzied madness had not quite faded from her yet. She smiled in soft contentment and confided in me that she felt comforted by my presence, as if I was a long lost lover finally reunited with her and that I reminded her of someone she had lost. I felt strangely inadequate. She had displaced her deep affection for someone else in me. I was not human. I cannot always be here to stoke the flames.

  
She continued to speak quietly, her voice purring contentedly after the successful hunt. “I am inclined to think that I find comfort in the similar inner conflict we share.”  
Her gaze had changed and taken on a sharp perceptive glint to it, as if her turmoil had gifted her with renewed insight to other beings in similar predicaments. “You seem so deceptively calm even as the internal discord starts to rear its ugly head in you.”

  
I stifled a flinch at the truth in her chilling statement. My expression turned reticently grim. “I think this is what humans call the calm before the storm.”

  
Madam Red chuckled at my idea of calm while gesturing to the dead woman on the landing, apparently finding grotesque humour in the inappropriate time and place.

  
I smiled endearingly. “This is considered calm, I suppose, for a reaper.”

I saw her smile disappear and morph into a gruesome expression of bewildered shock tinged with a genuine morbid curiosity. I am sure she would have screamed if it were not for the lingering threat of being caught with the dead body right then and there.

My irises gleamed notoriously devious as I leaned in over the body, closing the gap between her and me. “Next time, why don’t you rip out the source of envy whole before you tear such gaping holes in the specimen?”


	5. Red Spider Lilies in Full Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just how much maddening passion can Madam Red's humanity sustain before it overwhelms her?

Death hovered over me, whispering instructions but I was not afraid. Hold the weapon with one steady hand; push the trigger with two fingers, inhale one last deep breath, and pull. The smoke and powder from the gun burned like hell and seared an easy entrance into the bony structure that served its protective purpose no more. The projectile made effortless shrapnel of the mass inside, tearing a hole rimmed with abraded skin as the remnants of an ugly souvenir. It split apart bone, rendered matter to a bloody pulp; shoving tissues aside as it tore an intrusive cavity clean through and everything collapsed. It all unfolded with the high speed the bullet throttled out of the pistol with and within a measly fraction of a second, I was gone.

“Pandora Peregrine. Twenty years old. Cause of death: gunshot wound to temple. Second suicide attempt successful.”

I thought I would be relatively lucky that I had allowed myself no time to utter pain or wallow in regret and self-pity. But I had not allowed any thought for the morbid afterlife I would be subjected to. Laughing bitterly, I shoved the glasses upwards where they rested precariously on my head; combing back dishevelled strands of thick black hair and subjected my vision to a blurry sight of London’s drunken nightlife crawling with vermin. Pathetic.

“You just broke the rule that reapers must never remove their glasses, junior.” Even with my bleary sight, the bouncing mass of red was instantly recognizable by distinct colour, if not already by voice.

“Technically, they are not fully removed yet, senior.” I gestured to them perched on top of my head before reluctantly pushing them down, readjusting them with my right hand. “It’s a pity to think that even with these new glasses, I’m still as blind as I was before.”

I trailed off into the silence that ensued when one stared at their companion with a burning sort of curiosity. I had been dragged into the duties of a reaper with a strange, consuming curiosity that lingered like a phantom. It persisted and took root within me when my eyes had fluttered open mindlessly, with a foreign chartreuse phosphorescent shade seared into my irises. Perhaps it would be the only feeling to haunt me for the dreary length of my duties. 

I wondered how it would be like to derive purpose from fiery passion instead. And for that reason, I am fascinated to no end by the reaper in front of me who has now taken to sashaying her hips, mumbling incoherently about her latest object of affection. 

“Been a while that you’ve been stalking this lady.” Grell Sutcliffe cocked her head inquisitively at me, narrowed her eyes and then smirked coyly, all while swinging her hips flirtatiously. “Oh dear me, has a little reaper developed a crush?” 

She leaned a hand on her death scythe. “Ah, so this is your type? Hmph. I didn’t think you had it in you, always strutting around in that aloof manner.” She let loose an excited squeal. “Your androgynous image really intrigues me.”

We were perched strategically on the top of the dominating bulk of the 1876 Board School at the western end of Buck’s Row, situated in Whitechapel. I shifted my gaze downward to the consuming black abyss of the street. The weak glow from the street lamps did nothing to illuminate its surroundings to its patrollers. I don’t take my eyes off the figure dogging the prostitute. Closer. 

“Why would you develop an interest in humans? After all, they are such fragile little things. They die and countless more pop up in their places.” She sneaked another glance at the woman below, her comment ending in a painted pout when her comments garnered no reaction. “She doesn’t seem that interesting.” 

I took my eyes off the woman hiding herself in the shadows of the buildings and chanced a scrutinising sidelong glance at the death scythe Grell now had propped up carelessly against her leg that extended onto the ledge. “Don’t you think your Death Scythe looks a bit too conventional?”

The other reaper huffed in indignation. She opened her mouth to protest but halted at the first proper sight of her death scythe in the dull grey hue the moon painted it in, realizing the grain of truth in her companion’s comment. “As if Ronald doesn’t already give me enough grief about it, I swear-“

Both reapers were interrupted by a dull thud and a telling gurgled cry. The pace was unsettlingly fast for a human. Both raced to lean dangerously over the ledge for a closer look, their chartreuse phosphorescent eyes narrowing simultaneously. The scent of fresh death hung like an ominous spectre in the air, the odour quickly turning unbearable as the heat of the kill peaked. There was the squelch of cold sharpened metal on soft flesh after the murdered sound was released, slow in its hushed gurgle, dwindling to a meaningless silence. There was a fevered sawing and jagged laceration that sliced mercilessly through the prostitute that already reeked of gutter and alleyways. It subsided soon enough and the soft stabbing squelch of flesh pierced the darkness steadily.

I saw the black of the spewing fluid first coagulate and pool from the deep gash under the victim’s left ear that stretched grotesquely to the right. The cut was so deep it showed the bony white of the spinal column. Her neck had almost been completely severed, the larger vessels on her throat sundered completely and her head lolled awkwardly to the right with only a fraction of the skin still attached to the neck. The blood stuck to her shocked face in dark viscid blotches. Her skirt was pulled up around her waist, exposing a skilfully disembowelled abdomen by a vertical cavernous laceration. The slit was spilling intestines among gushing black liquid. 

Mary Ann Nichols aged 34 years old.   
Cause of death: Laceration to neck.   
Date of demise: 31st August 1888. Remarks: None.

The perpetrator emerged into full view from the gorge that crowded her. The hot blood that still dripped from her seemed to enrage her to no end. If anything, it seemed to fan the flames even more fervently. I heard Grell gulp noticeably at the ferocious beauty tainted in red. Even the moon’s dull grey London light exploded in luminescent colour when it grazed the very edges of her. Her skin, stained a dangerously consuming crimson like her hatred, bore no traces of her pale skin. It was as if someone had turned her inside out, her mangled distorted person bared for us to revel in. 

She had surrendered herself so far to the extremes of hatred and envy that it would be difficult to turn back. Madness had worn her down. In that very moment, there was no doubt. She was Madam Red, truly and honestly glorified in her twin passions. I chanced another glance at Grell. She was spellbound, her lipstick drawn mouth hanging agape at the fantasy unfolding in front of her. Perhaps she was taken aback to find someone with a passion burning even more scintillating than hers. She had finally stumbled upon a fellow actress, perhaps just as accomplished as her in portraying the repulsive side to humanity with striking precision. Our eyes met for a split second, mine a warning glare before she took off after the woman. She was, as I had expected, completely enamoured, drunk on the high of a newfound obsession and therefore, as always, incapable of any coherent thought. 

I twitched in annoyance and fidgeted with my nail gun as she approached Madam Red. If only Grell had the sense to refrain from interrupting Madam in her work and perhaps held off the introduction till later. My annoyance became even more evident when the nuisance flamboyantly boasted that she had been observing Madam all this while.  
Madam responded with a stony expression to the death god who smiled red down at her. After all, she was already aware of the fact that grim reapers existed. Grell’s smile faltered for a brief second at Madam Red’s deadpan reaction but she continued relentlessly in her rant, grovelling that they were indistinguishable in what they both desperately craved but could never hope to gain.

I generously allowed Grell abundant time to finish before turning on my heel slowly and retreated from the sight, stifling my excitement. Madam was indeed interrupted in her work but no matter. The play was well underway. I rubbed my cold palms against each other. Both personalities are seething, almost fit to burst with their self-contained passion and fervour and now, they had crossed paths to bask and wallow in their shared grief. The effect would be deliciously twofold. Since Madam is beyond saving, I will leave her to descend to the deepest crevices of her soul. 

Just how much maddening passion can her humanity sustain before it overwhelms her? 

A sort of fearful apprehension stirred within me and shattered my bliss, whispering needless trepidations in his concerned velvety tones. I cringed in annoyance. Nevertheless, I stubbornly continued in the anticipation of the revelation this twisted union will soon bring. My nimble frame leapt from the roof onto the street opposite the site of murder and landed with a duly crunch on the wet gravel of the street that led to the entrance of Buck’s Row. A night watchman was perched at his station but he had been dozing off till the sound of my abrupt landing startled him. My mouth stretched in an unsettlingly exuberant grin. His mouth gaped slightly in surprise and he feigned it by widening his mouth further to inquire about the reason behind the too cheerful greeting at five in the morning.

My unbridled excitement rendered me careless. “Look here watchman, old man; I believe somebody was murdered down in Buck’s Row.” 

His features stilled in disbelief, quickly quivering into amusement and wrinkled into the ugly coarse lines of mocking laughter. However, his hideous chortle and snorts of scorn trailed off into a weak gulp of horror the moment a visibly shaken policeman turned the corner, emerging from Buck’s Row ashen-faced and crying bloody murder.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you would stick around, there are more on the way. Constructive comments and kudos are always welcome.


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